MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY David Giles MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY David Giles Coventry University LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS 2003 Mahwah, New Jersey London Copyright Ó 2003 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other means, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers 10 Industrial Avenue Mahwah, New Jersey 07430 Cover design by Kathryn Houghtaling Lacey Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Media psychology by David Giles. ISBN 0-8058-4048-6 (cloth : alk. paper); 0-8058-4049-4 (pbk. : alk. paper). Copyright information for this volume can be obtained by contacting the Library of Congress. Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability. Printed in the United States of America 10987654321 Contents Preface ix PART I: MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY IN CONTEXT 1 1 What Is Media Psychology, and Why Do We Need It? 3 Defining the Territory 3 Defining “Mass Media” 6 Psychology and Media: An Uneasy Relationship? 9 Practising Media Psychology? 12 2 Theoretical Issues in Media Research 14 Early Approaches to Media 14 McLuhan and Postmodernism 16 Developments in Media Research 18 The “Effects” Tradition 18 Cultivation Research 21 Uses and Gratifications Research 23 The “Active Audience” 24 The Way Forward? 27 3 Research Methods in Media Psychology 28 The Experimental Tradition 28 Survey Methods 33 Interviewing and Qualitative Analysis 38 v vi CONTENTS Ethnography and Observation 40 Analysis of Media Texts 42 Discourse Analysis 44 PART II: PSYCHOLOGICAL EFFECTS AND INFLUENCES OF MEDIA 47 4 The Effects of Media Violence 49 What Are the Immediate Effects of Watching Violent Media? 52 Characteristics of the Users of Violent Media 57 Cognitive Factors in Media Violence 64 Cultural and Ideological Aspects of the Media Violence Debate 67 Future Avenues in Media Violence Research 70 Conclusion 71 5 Prosocial Effects of Media 73 Media and Prosocial Behaviour: The “Effects” Tradition 75 The Effects of “Prosocial Media” 78 Parental Mediation 83 Conclusion 86 6 Pornography and Erotica 88 Definitions of Pornography and Erotica 89 A Brief History of Pornography 90 The “Effects” of Pornography 94 Effects and Uses of Child Pornography 100 Meanings of Pornography and Erotica 102 Conclusion 103 7 Advertising 105 Advertising Through History 107 The Role of Psychology in Advertising 108 Cognitive and Behavioural Effects of Advertising 110 Rhetorical Effects of Advertising 116 Advertising and Children 123 Future Directions in Advertising 127 Conclusion 128 PART III: DEVELOPMENTAL ISSUES IN MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY 129 8 Young Children and Television 131 Fantasy Versus Reality: A Simple Choice? 132 Script and Schema Explanations 138 CONTENTS vii Children’s Socialisation Through Media 140 Imagination, Pretence, and Theory of Mind 142 Conclusion 146 9 Media and Adolescence 147 Media Use in Adolescence 148 The Role of Media Figures During Adolescence 153 Cultural Functions of Media Use 155 Media Influences on Adolescent Body Image 157 Conclusion 162 PART IV: THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF THE MEDIA 163 10 Representations of Social Groups 165 Gender Representation in the Media 167 Media Representations of Men 168 The Effects of Changing Media Representations of Men 173 Representations of Minority Groups in the Media 174 Media Representations of Disability 176 Media Representations of Mental Health 178 Further Issues 181 Conclusion 183 11 The Psychology of the Media Audience 184 “The Audience” in Media Research 186 What Is Parasocial Interaction? 188 Fans and Fandom 197 A Case Study: When Celebrities Die 199 Conclusion 201 PART V: GENRES 203 12 News and Current Affairs 205 Sources of News 206 Content-Based Approaches to News Media 208 Information-Processing Approaches to News Reception 212 Bad News and Serious News 217 Conclusion 219 13 Sport 221 Motivations for Viewing and Enjoying Sport 225 Problematic Aspects of Sport in the Media 228 Conclusion 233 viii CONTENTS 14 Audience Participation and Reality TV 234 Audience-Participation Media: A History 235 The Appeal of Audience-Participation Media 242 Conclusion 247 15 Soaps 248 Soaps: A History 249 Formal Features of Soaps 251 Soap Fans, Stigma, and Feminism 252 The Viewer as Psychologist: Identification and Parasocial Interaction 254 Fantasy and Realism 256 Conclusion 257 PART VI: THE FUTURE OF MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY 259 16 The Internet 261 The Internet: One Medium or Several? 261 A Brief History of the Net 262 The Internet in Research 263 Attitudes and Theories Toward the Net 265 Individual Aspects of Internet Use 266 Social Aspects of Internet Use 269 Conclusion 272 17 Psychology in the Media 273 Psychologists in the Media 274 The Academia/Media Relationship 275 Science in the Media 276 Social Science in the Media 277 Guidelines and Training for Media Performance 279 Conclusion 282 References 283 Author Index 309 Subject Index 321 Preface As with so many academic texts, the idea for writing this book stemmed from a specialist final-year option that I developed at Coventry University. Simply put, there was no single text that covered all the material to which I wished to introduce students in the year. Most relevant texts were aimed at media and communication students, and assumed a lot of background knowledge about media history that psychology undergraduates rarely pos- sess. Others failed to go beyond the basic “effects” paradigm, or were largely concerned with cognitive processing of media rather than placing them in a social and cultural context. Others, typically those in the Euro- pean media studies tradition, erred in the opposite direction, blandly dis- missing psychology as at best a relic of behaviourism, at worst as fascist pro- paganda! The idea for this book, then, was to navigate a gentler course in between the two traditions, arguing that serious study of the psychological influences of media should be rooted in the scientific tradition, but that good science requires the ability to look beyond the laboratory and use ap- propriate methods of investigation in the “real” world. I hope that the resulting text is not too much of a fudge, playing the experimentalists off against the social constructionists, trying to balance discourse and cognition, but I really think it is important for psychologists to study the whole picture rather than sinking lazily into the comfy chair of an established paradigm. (I blame the Ph.D. process for this!) I apologise, too, for my Anglocentric perspective throughout the text, particularly in chapter 13 (“Sport”). I know that readers in North America and continen- tal Europe (and many in the United Kingdom) may scoff at my use of exam- ples from the sport of cricket, but I would never have had the time to learn ix x PREFACE the mysteries of baseball (or sumo, or whatever) in order to conjure up par- allel examples that would have wider appeal. And the examples are impor- tant, so do bear with me on this one. Several figures have played an important role in shaping the develop- ment of the book. Emily Wilkinson, my editor at Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, has been fantastic throughout, never interfering in the creative process but always helpful and encouraging. I owe a great deal to Jeffrey Goldstein and Barrie Gunter for their positive and constructive criticism at various stages in the writing process, and I would also like to thank Jennings Bryant for some very useful feedback on the initial proposal. I would also like to thank two cohorts of undergraduate students at Coventry for their willingness to engage with the lecture material that forms the content of this text. Part I MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY IN CONTEXT Shortly before I began writing this book I attended a party at the home of some friends. It was a highly civilised affair, pop- ulated mostly by professional couples in their 20s and 30s and one or two single people, all graduates of some sort or other, although with little in common other than their friendship with the hosts. I was not wearing my psychologist’s hat; far from “analysing everybody,” as nonpsychologists would have it, I was simply chatting away in my usual friendly style when the topic of conversation turned to a television show that had been broadcast the previous evening. Suddenly, I stopped chatting and started listening. I felt my psychologist’s hat ma- terialising on my head, and it stayed there for the remainder of the evening, as the conversation ebbed and flowed. After about an hour or so, the content of the conversation had al- most exclusively concerned media—specific shows had been discussed and critiqued; various personalities and celebrities had been gossiped about and evaluated as though they had been guests in the next room; when cultural matters had cropped up, even they had concerned subjects like football and pop music, which rely heavily (and in some cases exclu- sively) on media consumption. When the conversation ended and we played a game, this game was based entirely on a pop- ular television quiz show. A popular cliché states that television has destroyed the art of conversation. Yet here we were, not “consuming” media at 1 2 I. MEDIA PSYCHOLOGY IN CONTEXT all (although the stereo may have provided a quiet aural backdrop), con- versing away artistically, indeed playing parlour games as our Victorian an- cestors had. However, this roomful of near-strangers were able to discuss an enormous breadth of topics in intimate detail, requiring a degree of shared cultural knowledge that would have astonished past generations. Far from robbing us of social activity, some would argue that the mass media have en- riched our cultural lives over the last century in ways that could have never been imagined.